There are 13 items tagged:Photography

The Homelands Blog

For the last several years, Homelands’ Ruxandra Guidi and Bear Guerra have been visiting California’s Coachella Valley to document the environmental and health disasters there, from contaminated water to pesticide pollution to hazardous waste. Now, in a major piece …

The Homelands Blog

Last year, Homelands’ Bear Guerra spent two weeks in the Ecuadorian Amazon making images to accompany anthropologist Mike Cepek’s upcoming ethnography about the impacts that oil has had on the life of the indigenous Cofán. The …

The Homelands Blog

Los Angeles is a rapidly aging city in a rapidly aging county. In fact, over the next 15 years, LA County’s senior population will double, to nearly one-fifth of the total population. Housing, health care, …

The Homelands Blog

One of Los Angeles’ NPR affiliates, KCRW, has launched Bear and Rux’s year-long multi-platform project about aging in the city’s working-class and immigrant neighborhoods. “Going Gray in LA: Stories of Aging along Broadway” is part …

The Homelands Blog

Homelands’ co-founder and senior producer Alan Weisman is spending nearly a month in Colombia and Ecuador giving talks and interviews about his two most recent books, The World Without Us and Countdown.

The Homelands Blog

Since August 13, Ecuadorians from across the political spectrum have been observing a nationwide strike and marching in the streets against the policies of President Rafael Correa. Homelands’ Bear Guerra has been documenting the protests, which have received little attention in the international …

The Homelands Blog

This year’s Semana Santa, or Holy Week, brought thousands into churches and out on the streets of Ecuador, where an estimated 80 percent of people identify as Catholic. Homelands’ Bear Guerra was there to document the festivities in Quito’s historic …

The Homelands Blog

As the U.S. Senate prepares to vote on the Keystone XL Pipeline this week, we thought we’d let you know about a terrific photo essay from the path of the proposed pipeline that recently appeared in Politico. Photographer …

The Homelands Blog

For the 60,000 residents of Cañar, Ecuador, the costs of migration can be great, especially for children. But the benefits can be great as well: unprecedented access to education and jobs, freedom of movement and financial independence for …

The average person drinks two quarts of water every day, but it takes more than a thousand times that to produce a day’s worth of food. That’s a problem everywhere, but especially in India, where scientists say nearly a third of the country’s underground aquifers are already in critical condition.

Rajendra Singh has become known as “The Water Man” for his efforts to engage communities in grassroots conservation efforts. Among his accomplishments: Seven dry rivers in his home district are flowing year-round again.

Rajendra Singh at the headquarters of the organization he directs, Tarun Bharat Sangh (Indian Youth Association). Since the 1980s, the group has focused on community-based water management.

Photo: Jonathan Miller

Singh at the first water harvesting structure he built in the Alwar District of Rajasthan state.

Photo: Jonathan Miller

A cloth map shows the locations of water harvesting structures in Alwar. Singh says there are now more than 10,000 structures in the area, all built by hand by community members.

Photo: Jonathan Miller

The most common type of water harvesting structure in Alwar is a “check dam,” known locally as a johad. Different types of structures are used in other places.

Photo: Jonathan Miller

Villagers move rocks for a new johad. Water harvesting goes back hundreds of years, but was largely abandoned with the arrival of tube wells and electric pumps.

Photo: Jonathan Miller

Harshaye, 65, says he is confident that this area will be green and productive by next year.

Photo: Jonathan Miller

Singh now spends most of his time on national and regional water policy issues. He says the Indian government is beginning to see the value of grassroots water management.

Photo: Jonathan Miller

An employee of Singh’s nonprofit leads a field trip for university students from the central Indian city of Bhopal. Rainwater harvesting is enjoying a resurgence, but groundwater withdrawals still far outpace deposits.

Photo: Jonathan Miller

In Lapuria village in central Rajasthan, local leader Laxman Singh (right) listens as villager Chhotu describes his work planting trees. Singh says water conservation has revitalized the village.

Photo: Jonathan Miller

A girl draws drinking water from a well in Lapuria. The water table had dropped to more than 200 feet below the surface. Now it is 20 to 30 feet down, thanks to a range of conservation measures.

Once a leading rice producer, the Philippines can no longer feed itself. That leaves two options: increase supply or try to do something about demand.

In the 1960s, the Philippines was one of the world’s leading rice producers. Since then its population has more than doubled and the country can no longer feed itself. Not only has demand for food shot up, but farmland has been lost to development. This has put pressure on all the country’s basic life-support systems. It is felt most acutely by the poorest families.

While most of the countries in Southeast Asia have taken decisive action to slow population growth, the Catholic Church in the Philippines has resisted any form of population control. But some politicians are responding to a clamor among their constituents for family planning services.

The Philippines has one of the highest population growth rates in all of Southeast Asia. Its population, today just shy of 100 million, is expected to double by the end of the century.

Photo: Sam Eaton

Government warehouses, like this one, store imported rice. The Philippines imports more rice than any other nation on the planet in order to feed its growing population.

Photo: Sam Eaton

Scientists at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines are scrambling to introduce higher-yielding rice varieties.

Photo: Sam Eaton

Many farmers in the Philippines are poor -- with few tools at their disposal to boost rice yields.

Photo: Sam Eaton

Rice is the staple food of the Philippines.

Photo: Sam Eaton

The maternity ward at the Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in Manila is packed beyond capacity with new mothers who have no choice but to share the limited number of beds. More than 2 million babies are born every year in the Philippines.

Photo: Sam Eaton

Population growth among the poor in the Philippines, where birth control remains largely out of reach, is about four times higher than the rest of the country.

Photo: Sam Eaton

The price of rice remains high, with poor Filipinos spending as much as 70 percent of their income on food.